Hurricane
by ladyd10
Summary: Hurricane Juliana hits Miami in a pre-season 1 one-shot. New CSI Eric Delko and reasonably new CSI Calleigh Duquesne have their very first moment of bonding.


_**Author's note: I thought that this would be timely considering it's hurricane season in the Atlantic right now. Before anyone asks, I looked up any and all hurricanes that hit close to or directly on Miami anywhere from 2001 to the present and came up with a very sore one that's after effects some folks are still dealing with. After heavy consideration, I decided to break my tradition of sticking to documentable facts and make up one of my own so as not to upset anyone still dealing with that hurricane's wake. **_

_**This takes place just before Golden Parachute. How's that for a blast from the past?**_

_**Hurricane**_

Calleigh looked up nervously at the rapidly darkening sky and couldn't help the shiver that ran through her. She felt hideously exposed and, she admitted to herself, somewhat frightened. The wind began to pick up and she went back inside the crime scene. Most everyone had gone; Alexx taking the body back for autopsy and Horatio and Speed already packing up the last of their evidence.

Speed looked up as she entered and noticed the shadow of fear that haunted her eyes before she let the air of professionalism mask it. He stood up, hefting his kit. "Finish up quickly, Juliana's moving in pretty fast. If I don't see you back at the Lab in an hour, I'm coming looking for you and Delko, you got me? She's a Category 3 and that's nothing to mess with."

Calleigh nodded, swallowing past the lump in her throat. "Yeah. We'll be right behind you," she said, desperately trying to keep her voice even.

Speed dropped his voice, letting her hear the concern for her and Eric's well-being. "You'd better be."

Horatio approached, carrying his kit and evidence box. "Finish up here as quickly as you can. Make sure Eric doesn't get too engrossed in processing evidence. Don't be too long. Take what you have and go."

"Tim already cautioned me, but thanks," Calleigh replied, touched by her boss' concern. "Let me light a fire under Eric. We'll be right behind you."

With a nod, both men left and Calleigh squat down next to Eric, who was busy dusting for fingerprints. "Hey, we've got to get a move on. It's getting worse outside."

"Yeah, in a minute," he mumbled back.

"I mean it. Horatio and Tim just left and they both cautioned me against staying too long," she said with some urgency. "I assured them that we'd be along in a short while. So finish up and let's get out of here."

Eric looked up at the tone of her voice. If he hadn't known better, he'd have sworn that he heard an edge of fear in it. He quickly dismissed the idea. Only knowing her for a couple of months, he had come to understand that Calleigh Duquesne was highly intelligent, exquisitely capable and entirely fearless. She couldn't be afraid of a hurricane, could she? It didn't seem possible since he knew that she was recruited from New Orleans and that was pretty much Hurricane Central. "Alright, if you're in such a hurry to go..."

"Direct order from Horatio," Calleigh countered to cover her growing fear. She had never actually sat out a hurricane in all her years in New Orleans. The few tropical storms that she did ride out were enough to scare her nearly to death. The only hurricane to hit while she had been at the New Orleans Police Department had hit when she went to a forensics conference in Las Vegas. The tornadoes and Mississippi River back flow flooding that she grew up with were enough for her.

Eric stood, shutting his kit and grabbing the evidence box. "I'm done; how about you?"

Calleigh hefted her kit. "Yeah, we'd better get back," she said as she opened the door to sheets of rain whipping sideways.

"Shit," Eric breathed beside her. "We gotta move fast. Ida is getting close. Let me drive. I've driven in conditions like this."

"Good, because I haven't," Calleigh yelled as they ran for the Hummer, quickly stowing their things and getting inside. They were completely soaked by the time they buckled themselves in.

Eric drove back to the Lab as fast as he dared, every minute the weather becoming worse. He dared a glance at his silent partner to see her, eyes shut and knuckles white as she clutched the door handle. "You okay?"

She nodded stiffly. "I'm fine," she lied, "I'm just a little cold."

"Yeah, me too," he said softly. She was clearly not "fine" by any stretch of the imagination. "We're almost there."

"Good," Calleigh whispered.

The Hummer fell silent as Eric concentrated on getting them back to the Lab in one piece. Suddenly the parking structure loomed ahead of them and Eric gratefully steered the behemoth vehicle inside. Together, he and Calleigh gathered their evidence and kits, walking up the stairs to the Lab instead of taking the elevator; it was shut down, a precaution with the hurricane fast approaching.

"Hey, you two look like drowned rats!" Speed said, relief on their safe return evident in his voice.

Calleigh shoved her evidence box into his hands. "I'm freezing and I'm changing clothes, so if you gentlemen don't mind, I'll be on my way."

"Yeah, sure, I'll be glad to log your evidence in," Speed called after her retreating figure. He looked over at Eric, who was staring after Calleigh. "You'd better change, too or you'll catch a cold or something."

Eric dragged his attention back to Speed. "Uhm, yeah, I will but there's only one locker room so I think I'll just wait it out until she's done. Speed, what did you say to her at the crime scene? She's pretty spooked."

"I just told her that a Cat 3 hurricane was nothing to play chicken with and for her to light a fire under you so that you'd be back here before it made land fall," Speed said mildly. "I wasn't out to scare her or anything."

"Yeah, well...never mind. Let's get this stuff logged in before we lose power," Eric said.

Speed shrugged and followed him into Layout. "We won't, you know. We've got a back up generator so that we can keep going even if the whole city is out. The information in the mainframe is too valuable to lose if something happens."

Eric gave him a crooked smile. "Well, that's comforting, I think. That is, unless the building blows away."

"Don't even start with that, Delko. The whole Lab was designed to be hurricane proof. It'll whine and groan in protest, but the Lab won't blow away; not even under a Category 4. It exceeds Federal Guidelines by miles. We're all perfectly safe here."

ECECECECECECECECECECECECECECECECECECECECECECECECECECECECECECECECE

Eric hand walked the bullet collected at the crime scene to firearms himself. He did it for a number of reasons, the top two being that he was the new guy and didn't want to get flack for holding up evidence and the second was because he was still a little worried about Calleigh after how uneasy she was the entire ride back to the Lab. As he approached he could hear the sound of gunfire and he quickened his pace and fairly jogged into her workspace. She was on the firing range. He leaned in the doorway and watched her fire off several rounds and then write down data before removing her glasses and ear protectors. That's when it happened: the roof groaned loudly under the wind of Hurricane Juliana. Her head shot up and she began to tremble, gripping the ledge tightly.

"Hey, Calleigh, I have that bullet from the vic for you. Where do you want it?" he asked, alerting her to his presence.

She jumped and spun to face him. "Eric, you scared me half to death! Next time make some noise, will you?"

"I know I'm the new guy and all, but I can tell that you're not okay right now and probably won't be until Juliana blows over," Eric said, taking a chance with this newest of friendships He already knew that he wanted to get to know her a whole lot better in the future. He felt a connection to her and found her fascinating. "Speed said that the building is hurricane proof and that we're perfectly safe here. I just thought that you might want to know."

"Yeah, well like you said, you're new and don't know me very well. I'm fine," she snapped and then jumped as a longer, louder groan sounded from the roof. She took an unconscious step toward Eric.

He couldn't stop himself. Eric placed his hands on her shoulders, trying to convey comfort. "No, you're not. No jokes; I'm not going to laugh at you. I wouldn't do that. And it stays between us. Want to talk about it?"

She looked down and tucked hair behind her ear. "I've never been through a hurricane before. I've seen them on the news, but I've never ridden one out and it's really unnerving."

"Really? I thought with you being from New Orleans these would have been old hat by now," Eric said, following her back into the lab area.

"You would think, but I didn't grow up in New Orleans. I grew up in a small town in the northeast of Louisiana. We had tornadoes and Mississippi back up flooding. I've ridden out tornadoes in the root cellar," Calleigh rambled. "I went to Tulane and then ended up on NOPD."

"Come on, even in all that time?"

"No; not one. The only time one came anywhere near by, I was in Vegas at a forensics conference," she replied, suppressing a shudder at the roof venting it's displeasure yet again. "This is my first."

Without thinking, Eric blurted, "Hurricane virgin."

Her voice held a sharp edge to it. "What?"

Eric felt his cheeks color at what he had just previously said. "I'm sorry. I'm not a jerk. I was born and raised right here in Miami and I've lost count of how many hurricanes I've been through. I remember one when I was about seven or eight that had almost all of Miami evacuate. I was so scared that we were going to die. Little Havana is pretty close to the coast and we all had to go. As it was, we lost most of what we had, which wasn't much, but so had pretty much everyone in Little Havana. My mom said that it was no worse than living in Cuba during hurricane season."

Calleigh looked over at him, a thoughtful expression on her face. "Your folks are from Cuba?"

"Yeah, my mom is native Cuban and my dad is Russian. He was stationed in Cuba during the Missile Crisis. He and my mom met a little after that. The last name is really Delektorsky. I've got three older sisters. They were all born in Cuba. I was born here. I'm talking too much again," Eric said.

Calleigh gave him a shy smile. "No. I like hearing about it. I've heard about Little Havana before, but unless it was on an investigation, I've never been. I guess I'm just over cautious."

"Little Havana is a really great place. Everyone is family and everyone helps each other out. You ought to give it a try. I mean, you'll stand out like a sore thumb, but it's home. It is to me, anyway. You'd have to learn Spanish to really get around there," Eric said, drawing closer to her as the hurricane made it's intensity known inside the Lab. He could hear the freight train like rumble and heard the roof, indeed the whole building, moan and groan under the stress. Juliana was directly over them and ravaging Miami with all her intensity.

Calleigh edged closer to him as the sound intensified. "Yo soy fluida en Espaniol. I took it in high school and college. I figured it was either Spanish or Mandarin to make it in the world. Spanish is easier," She paused, listening to the hurricane raging outside. "I'm really feeling unnerved right now."

Eric gave up the pretense of anything other than comforting her while she was obviously frightened. He wrapped her in his arms and held her. "Yeah, it can be pretty scary. I still hate hurricane season. The higher the category, the more it scares me. This baby is a three. It was a four when I was a little kid."

"So what are you saying?" Calleigh asked, fighting the urge to bury her face in his chest.

"That if you're not scared in one way or another of this hurricane, you're an idiot. I'm plenty scared right now and I know we're safe," Eric said, allowing himself to take comfort from the woman in his arms, even though she was more frightened than he was. "I've put up with hurricanes since the day I was born and I still get scared by them."

"So what you're saying is..."

"That if you're not a little scared in some way, then you're just not normal," Eric said with finality hoping that Calleigh would be feeling a little better.

Calleigh sniffed a bit. "Then I guess I'm normal because I'm down right scared right now."

Eric wrapped himself around her trembling form "So am I. If you won't tell, neither will I. Deal?"

She snuggled in close. "Deal."


End file.
